Re:Humanity has wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, major r...
by TeMPOraL on Tuesday October 30, 2018 @08:25AM
(#18335824)
> The fact is, if you want to improve the state of humanity on the Earth, your only effective means of doing so is technology.
This I agree with to some extent. We need the tech to save us, but I'm not convinced that we can get to that tech in time, without reducing our quality of life now, or having it reduced by the climate degradation in the next decades.
> As you call it, “last-minute technological breakthroughs”, dismissing centuries of human progress as some sort of accidental stroke of luck.
I'm trying not to, but looking back, how many more tricks like Haber–Bosch process can we find? We've always somehow risen to the challenge, but then again, almost all fields of science and technology were severely underexplored back then. We've fixed that now, we know the general landscape in which we're moving. I fully expect we can pull some more rabbits out of a hat, but will we be able to do that in time?
And the flip side of this is that we need those new miracle technologies to continue growing. Which means we need to actually fund and encourage them, and that seems to become a problem lately. Insert anything from "best minds of our generation wasted on getting people clicking on ads" to Bret Victor's musings on cleantech funding[0].
This I agree with to some extent. We need the tech to save us, but I'm not convinced that we can get to that tech in time, without reducing our quality of life now, or having it reduced by the climate degradation in the next decades.
> As you call it, “last-minute technological breakthroughs”, dismissing centuries of human progress as some sort of accidental stroke of luck.
I'm trying not to, but looking back, how many more tricks like Haber–Bosch process can we find? We've always somehow risen to the challenge, but then again, almost all fields of science and technology were severely underexplored back then. We've fixed that now, we know the general landscape in which we're moving. I fully expect we can pull some more rabbits out of a hat, but will we be able to do that in time?
And the flip side of this is that we need those new miracle technologies to continue growing. Which means we need to actually fund and encourage them, and that seems to become a problem lately. Insert anything from "best minds of our generation wasted on getting people clicking on ads" to Bret Victor's musings on cleantech funding[0].
--
[0] - http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/#funding